


Minor Position

by Shayvaalski



Series: The Kids Are Alright [14]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, Mental Illness, Mycroft's Meddling, Parentlock, and oh honey, sebastian moran: minder of highly sensitive people, you should see her in a minor position in the british government
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-21
Updated: 2014-01-21
Packaged: 2018-01-09 11:54:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1145671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shayvaalski/pseuds/Shayvaalski
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Siobhan as a young professional under Mycroft Holmes' wing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Art of Losing

**Author's Note:**

> Because these chapters were written at different times, the tense switches between them; the first chapter has simply been moved from where it was originally published.
> 
> The original "Minor Position" chapter [, since it's just a sort of outline for this longer work. ](http://archiveofourown.org/works/423483/chapters/707823)
> 
> Some tentative and general content warning for discussion of mental illness in somewhat unflattering ways.

She comes home from a solo job to a house that is too quiet. Tommy lifts up his head even before they come in the door, when Siobhan’s hand is still on the knob, and he shifts a little: _Careful, boss_. A small nod, and she opens it anyway, fingers resting on the butt of her gun beneath her suit.

Mum isn’t in the kitchen but there are low voices coming from the living room, one of them Seb’s, and the other—Siobhan drops her bag and shoves open the connecting door, Tommy so hard on her heels he nearly clips her. Any other time she’d have whirled on him, but Siobhan knows every employee and neighbor who’s allowed inside the house by sight (and sound and almost  _smell_ ), and the man who looks up at her, expressionless, is someone she has never seen. His small smile doesn’t touch his eyes, and Siobhan can’t read a thing off him.

Her gun is in her hand, cocked and aimed; Tommy has not quite drawn his when Sebastian recrosses his ankle over his knee and says, “Bhan.” The tone of it drags at her, grinding down her back. The man is in mum’s chair, and her finger tightens on the trigger.

“Siobhan.” It’s not a voice that brooks argument, and she looks over at Seb. When their eyes meet she shocks backwards, not quite visibly, and lowers the gun—because he looks _shattered_. Her father clears his throat, then says quietly, “This is Mycroft Holmes. Mr. Holmes, my daughter Siobhan. My adopted son Tommy.” Then, even quieter, “Put the gun away, pet.”

Siobhan holsters it, unwilling and static-roar spooked, the light too bright against her eyes. Tommy puts his hand against the small of her back, where the suit jacket nips in carefully to accentuate what figure she has; and she can feel the heat of him even through fabric. Holmes. _Holmes_. Something is badly wrong. She can’t hear mum anywhere, but he was supposed to be here. Here an hour past because they’re late, her and Tom. A muscle twitches low on the outside of her thigh.

Mycroft’s eyes go to it.

“Where’s mum?” Siobhan asks, flat. Sebastian’s jaw tightens, and he’s opening his mouth to say something—when Mycroft lifts a hand and says, “Perhaps you had better allow me, Mr. Moran.”

She has never seen her father look so worn, or give in to anyone except mum so easily. Tommy strokes down her back in tiny motions, because he’s been with her long enough to feel that she is inches away from losing control, even with years of experience behind them both. Sebastian has a hand over his mouth and his eyes closed, so she can’t even seek his gaze, the solid green line of it, not like Jim’s but still there, always there—

“Your mother,” Mycroft is saying, “is… perhaps it would be best to say that he has declined, somewhat swiftly.” Siobhan makes an involuntary movement towards him; he doesn’t stir and Tommy grips her wrist. “Please don’t upset yourself unnecessarily; he’s been sedated and is resting quietly.” He gestures carelessly towards the bedrooms. “I came as soon as I was made aware of the situation; your father was not, unfortunately, able to get in contact with you before I arrived.”

Siobhan’s hand goes automatically to the pocket she keeps her phone in; but they’d had to wipe and toss the burners two days back. Mycroft steeples his fingers beneath his chin, watching her with with cool calm eyes.

“We have been keeping tabs on your family for some time,” he says. “Your mother has been rather more active than we would prefer in the past several years; and somewhat more recently your involvement has been noted.” Mycroft hums, thoughtfully. “We have more than enough information, let me assure you, to make a conviction. Three convictions, if necessary. Or four.” And he inclines his head, very slightly, towards Sebastian; Siobhan is so still she can barely feel her own breath, and the blood is singing in her ears. Dad’s eyes are still closed.

“There is of course,” says Mycroft, rather carefully, “another option.”


	2. London Calling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The other option.

The first week with Mycroft Holmes was like being underwater.

He didn’t ask anything of her for three days, just let her prowl around his oversized London house alone (Tommy didn’t count, Tommy with his blue eyes flat and cautious and on her constantly) and had her summoned down to dinner every evening. She didn’t bother to show up until the fourth night, edges ragged from lack of sleep, Tommy close enough to touch; and Mycroft gestured without speaking to the seat across from his.

She sat.

"Ms. Moriarty—"

"Moran." Her voice rasped; Siobhan cleared her throat. Mycroft looked faintly surprised when she didn’t continue, and after a while he leaned forward, fingers steepled beneath his chin, examining her.

"Ms. Moran. I understand this must be—difficult, for you." He paused a moment, as if waiting for a response. "Your concern for your mother’s well-being is admirable, and I assure you he is receiving the best of care."

She said nothing. In the past week she'd said barely ten words, most of them to Tommy, and barely slept. The bed was too big, even with both of them in it, the room too high, the wallpaper too bright against her tongue and eyelids. Jim’s lack was a constant, physical ache, somewhere deep in her chest; she had never gone so long without some sign from him, some dropped coin or idle word. Not even in Russia. Not even in New York. 

"Siobhan." Mycroft snapped his fingers directly in her sightline; but it was the sound of her name that made Siobhan lift her head. Three syllables, the stresses where they should be, and his gaze holding hers was as steady as mum’s. Beneath the table, Tommy reached out to catch her unresisting hand. Holmes the Elder—who ten days ago Sebastian had looked at like an inevitability, like a bad dream come true—sighed, quietly. 

"He isn’t  _dead,_  Ms. Moran,” he said, drily. “Just the opposite, I’m told. James is making quite respectable strides in therapy, and even appears—”

"I want him back with dad." Siobhan’s voice was flat and uninflected. 

"We’ll discuss it." Mycroft looked distantly pleased to hear her speak, and leaned forward again. "First, though, there are a number of more pertinent subjects to be—"

"Now." 

"I’m afraid that’s an impossibility at this time."

They glared at each other across the table, and Siobhan placed both palms on its surface, feeling the slow rise of her mother’s anger beneath her skin. Tommy straightened up a little, his shoulders suddenly smooth and relaxed. It was Tommy Mycroft was watching as she breathed in, the air soft against her throat; Tommy whose movements he categorized almost visibly; and after a moment Siobhan glanced at him too, and the moment broke. 

"Why?"

"Siobhan," he said, and her name again, her name in that cultured voice but sounding  _right,_ as right as mum had ever said it, ”I realize you were raised with very little context to your mother’s—hm, shall we say operations? but the fact remains that he has been a danger to England for some time, and the institution in which he is currently residing was the best compromise I could arrange.” Mycroft steepled his fingers again and looked her over them. “I cannot simply release him back into his husband’s custody as if he were a common madman.” 

If she had been a dog Sioban’s teeth would have been halfway into his throat; Mycroft held up a forefinger. “He  _is_ mad, Ms. Moran. No matter what kind of terminology your family has been using for him, James Moriarty is mentally unbalanced and it’s fully time you acknowledged that properly.”

The table was some kind of dark reddish hardwood, so smooth it was almost soft, almost silky; cherry maybe, or rose, and Siobhan traced one line of grain down to the edge and back. Rosewood, most likely; the red was a deep one, the striping more pronounced. Mycroft made an exasperated sound.

"You’re behaving like a child."

"On the contrary." Siobhan put her head a little on one side, eyes dark brown and shallow. "Children experience family upheaval quite differently, I can assure you." 

"Sebastian made it clear when I spoke to him that this has been a long time coming, Ms. Moran." He leaned forward. "If you have refused to notice—and I doubt it is anything but active refusal, given previous indicators of your intelligence—I fail to see how that is my concern." 

 _Sebastian made it clear._ She closed her eyes for the space of a long heartbeat, then opened them, wide-pupilled. “I haven’t lived in Dalkey for years, Holmes.”

"You had daily contact with Moriarty." Mycroft glanced down at the phone resting by his elbow, brought it to life with a brush of his finger. "If not daily, as was periodically the case during working, ah, holidays, then at the least biweekly." He looked up at her again, and his voice was almost gentle when he said, "You cannot afford willful blindness, my dear. Not anymore."

Siobhan hissed on the in-breath, jaw a little dropped, and folded her hands in front of her. The silence stretched; out of the corner of her eye she could see Tommy settling into it as if for the long haul, his back sturdy and his attention on her. 

"This job offer," Siobhan said, finally, after some amount of time that might have been seconds or might have been minutes, "what is it, exactly." 

"One might call it an internship." His smile was very small, and she wanted—badly—to hit it. Her nails dug into the backs of her hands so hard she could feel a pulse beating under them, too quick. "You’ll be quite well-suited."

 _Three convictions. Or four._ Siobhan could taste blood now, and she pressed her tongue to the back of her teeth while copper flooded her mouth. Not a threat—never a threat, Sebastian had told her in the brief interlude between coming home and leaving, he doesn’t threaten, pet, he  _promises;_  and she wondered again how he knew, how he could possibly know—but good enough. 

Good enough for government work.

She swallowed down the blood. It took no effort, less than no effort, and the slide of it against her throat was familiar, almost comforting. Mycroft’s gaze was on her, and on Tommy, who sat stiff and upright with his foot pressed against hers, Tommy who hated the house actively and the city passively and never looked directly at the man across the table, Tommy with his flat blue eyes like tepid water.

Siobhan laughed. One side of Mycroft’s mouth twitched. 

"It’s a minor position," he said, casual, as if the air between didn’t reek of iron and copper. "But I imagine you won’t have a problem with that."


End file.
